Ormiston Yew Tree; with a Lament for the Earl of Hopetoun

Hail! monarch of the garden’s bed, That gleams like Druids’ grove afar; May lightnings never blast thy head, Nor blighting dews thy glories mar; And, should Destruction’s arm abhorr’d, E’er smite thee in thy noon of fame, Thy trunk shall deck the festive board, Like Shakspeare’s tree, and save thy name.

Beneath thy dark umbrageous shade The village swain delights to rove, To tell his kind-consenting maid The soft voluptuous tale of love; While blushes tinge her rosy cheeks, As crimson rays o’er snow-wreaths steal, The silent sigh too well bespeaks What maiden lips may not reveal.

How oft thy branches, spreading wide, Have canopied the children’s ring, From merry morn till eventide, Disporting like the birds in spring; While chasing from their dewy nest The covey o’er the lilied lea; Or, climbing high, with fearless breast, To rob the rook on yonder tree.

Years speed away—the rustic core Again beneath thy foliage meet, But not so blest as when of yore They tripp’d on music-loving feet. Now manhood’s sterner cares engage, As Mammon’s paths they keen explore; Or, haply, read the patriarch’s page, Or turn unmeaning thesis o’er.

When sultry Sol is flaming high, At summer’s noon the swains repair ’Neath thy impervious canopy The frugal fare of health to share. The cup goes round at pleasure’s call, The kiss is stolen from buxom maid; While, catching fragments as they fall, The fawning dog is couchant laid.

But when the clouds in darkness roam, Thick scatter’d by the murmuring wind, The moralist loves thy solemn gloom, That suits his meditative mind: Dull tree! thou lov’st the burial-ground, With evergreens thou mock’st decay; For where the woodmen moulder round, Thou gather’st moisture from their clay.

Canst thou, like old Dodona’s oak, Thy silent leaves to language wake, Where sacred doves responsive spoke?— The tree this answer deign’d to make: “Here Wishart shew’d prophetic powers, “Before that vial of wrath was given, “When in St Andrew’s dungeon towers “His vengeance-blood uprose to heaven!—

“Here Cockburn, in my solitude, “Forgot the bench and wrangling bar, “With Science in her gentler mood “To wage the literary war:— “Alike the senate or the plough, “The olive branch or patriot’s steel, “To him who with undaunted brow “Still advocated Scotia’s weel.

“Haply, beneath my verdant spray, “You tread the muse’s path divine, “Where lovely Fairnalie would stray, “The gentle votress of the nine. “She struck the lyre amongst these bowers, “And breathed that sweetly plaintive lay, “That weeps the forest’s wither’d flowers, “To fatal Flodden wede away.”

The tree was silent as before, It’s voice like summer breezes died, When the lone stranger rests his oar Upon Loch Lomond’s shelter’d side. Perhaps thy earlier shoots might form The trusty bow on Flodden’s plain, Where fell, amidst the arrowy storm, Thy warrior lord ’midst heaps of slain!

But now thy vernal boughs must mourn, The archer weep beneath thy shade; For Hopetoun never shall return, In Gallia’s fields all lowly laid. He loved to prune thy dark-green plumes, Which rising beauties still display; Nor deem’d thy never-fading blooms The emblem of his laurel bay.

When on Corunna’s fatal shore Afar the Gallic ensigns waved, When fell in Victory’s arms, brave Moore, Hopetoun retiring legions saved; Then, ’midst the din of doubtful war, Ere British ships came o’er the sea, His pensive thoughts might wander far, And sigh for home, and think on thee!

Thy chieftain fought on Egypt’s sands, And turn’d the battle’s reddening tide; Broke vaunting Gallia’s veteran bands, Unconquer’d by the world beside: His monument, his country’s page, In burning characters shall live; ’Twill gather lustre age by age,— The lustre worth alone can give.

This though his public acts may earn, Yet private tears will also flow, The splendid tower, the mountain cairn, A country’s weeping love will shew. These domes shall warm the patriot’s breast To deeds of glory undesign’d, While at the base the swain shall rest, And mourn a benefactor kind.